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08/15/2003: "TGIF Moderate Moview Review: Seabiscuit"

Today let’s take a break from our three-part “Clubbed for Growth” series (which, by the way, will have four parts) to provide the TGIF Moderate Movie Review promised last week. This is of course a weekly feature of this site. Those readers among you who are Big-C Conservatives (as if!) are likely thinking I’m spotlighting Seabiscuit because of its “Liberal” elements – references to FDR, the New Deal, script lines that include “we’re not laying anyone off”, and the like. Nope – I regard Seabiscuit as the quintessential moderate movie for different reasons. First, it showed real characters with a real-world balance of admirable and not-so-admirable qualities (including even the horse!) Since moderates like balance, this earns Seabiscuit its first M. Second, It wasn’t cynical, harshly negative, or a downer, qualities beloved of those on the extremes but not of moderates. Finally, it gets its third M for its faithfulness to the corny moderate belief that everyday individuals with faith in what they are doing can make a difference. The cynics on the wings don’t really believe this. The extreme left is too preoccupied with victimization, and the extreme right is too preoccupied with privilege, to believe that an ordinary person, operating outside the establishment, can change the tide of history. To such naysayers, I would point to great Americans who, through clear vision and persistence in working toward that vision, escaped the current that would have denied them their greatness. In the case of Lincoln and Eisenhower, the origins they transcended were humble. Theodore Roosevelt, born into privilege, arguably had a stronger current to overcome in his unflagging effort to protect America’s natural heritage from those in his own class who were amassing great wealth by consuming it. Movies like Seabiscuit remind us that corny values like optimism, diligence, and basic goodness made our country what it is, not greed, cynicism, or entitlement.